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Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Squeaky

Seen at the
Wilson Red Line Station at about 6:30 p.m., July 23rd, 2013

“You’ll
get stepped on, Squeaky,” said my sister Marcia, all smug as usual, “and then
Mom will cry.”

“Bullshit.
She’ll probably cry for like a second and then have another goddamn litter.”

I
knew I shouldn’t have said it, but I said it anyway. Sure enough, my little
brother Billy piped up. “You said a bad word! I’m telling Mom.”

“Tell
her, then. What do I care?” Billy started crying.

I
don’t know why I got stuck with a stupid name like Squeaky when all my other
brothers and sisters have totally normal names. I mean, Squeaky’s not my real
name. It’s Jacob, to tell you the truth. It really is, if you can believe it.
Jacob. How funny is that? I’ve heard lots of different stories about why I’m
called Squeaky. Mom says it’s because I was so cute—which I have a hard time
believing, honestly. I imagine that I probably just looked like all other
babies look, shriveled and pink and hairless. Babies are kind of gross, when
you think about it. You can’t really blame
them, though. It’s not their fault they look so weird. And they can be nice to
have around. I liked it when all my little siblings were born. It was fun to
watch their whiskers grow in and all. But they’re still kind of gross.

Marcia
says I’m called Squeaky because when I was little I was scared all the time and
I squealed a lot. Goddamn Marcia. She’s always saying stuff like that, trying
to make you feel bad about yourself. She wants to be perfect, but she’s not, and
the only way she can make herself believe that she’s perfect is by being a real
bitch to everybody. Which is so
stupid, really, because she’s close to perfect anyway. I mean it. She’s got all
this pretty gray hair that never seems to get dirty, and her nose is rosy pink,
and she’s damn intelligent. She’s right about me, too—I was scared a lot as a
kid. But that doesn’t mean she has to go reminding me about it all the time.

She
can’t say I’m scared now, though. There’s no way, because I’m the only one that’s
brave enough to go out and have a look at them. The humans, that is. That’s
what we were talking about that day. I wanted to see the big ugly things for
real. Humans—how funny are they? In all their stories and stuff, mice are all
cute. I’ve heard of Cinderella, mice helping her out and all that. But then
when they actually see us, they go nuts. Absolutely nuts. They scream, and they
lay out all these traps. They’re such hypocrites. It makes me sick.

I
wanted to see one even though they make me sick. I’d seen them from far away,
of course, lots of times. But Mom usually keeps us inside the walls, and we’re
only allowed on the track sometimes. From down there you can look up and see
them waiting for the trains. I always think it’d be crazy fun to crawl up one
of their legs and totally freak them out, but then they’d probably kick me off
and I’d get hurt. I’d probably deserve it.

I got myself into this big mess, though, because
I wanted to see a human, and I wanted to make Marcia angry because she’s such a
snob. So I snuck out through this little hole and started running around the
stairs. They have all these little crossed lines in them, I guess because the
humans are bad at walking, or something. So I was running around, minding my
own business, having a blast, and then there she was. This lady, this human
lady, coming up the stairs right in front of me. She had on these sandals, and
I could see her toes wiggling around—some of them were bigger than my head! I
was a little disappointed, because she didn’t scream. She just sort of gasped.
I squealed, though, and ran back inside the hole. I don’t know why I got so
scared, honestly. There I was, seeing what I wanted to see, and I got scared.
Maybe I was worried she’d step on me. I don’t know. I’m a lunatic. I swear I
am.

I've been re-reading The Catcher in the Rye, so when I saw a mouse yesterday I started picturing a mouse-as-Holden-Caulfield. My brain does bizarre things sometimes.